Russian Booster Rocket Fails to Deliver Satellites

NY Times ^ | ANNA KORDUNSKY

[neverdem]

MOSCOW — A Russian booster rocket carrying two telecommunications satellites malfunctioned during a launching early Tuesday, failing to deliver the satellites into their proper orbit and rendering them useless and unsalvageable.

The mishap was another blow to Russia’s space program, which has been plagued by malfunctions, crashes and failed launchings. The failure was particularly glaring because it came just hours after NASA’s successful landing of a research probe on Mars.

Acknowledging the starkly different outcomes, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri O. Rogozin, who oversees Russia’s military industry, suggested in a Twitter post that the national space agency, Roscosmos, was struggling because of aging leadership. “As long as the youngest Roscosmos director is 62, we can only dream of Mars rovers,” Mr. Rogozin said.

The cause of the failure is under investigation, officials said.

The satellites, worth about $45 million, were intended to provide telecommunications services for Indonesian and Russian customers. They were carried by a Proton rocket, with a Briz-M booster, launched from Russia’s Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

During the launching, the Briz-M booster activated as scheduled but switched off after only seven seconds instead of the more than 18 minutes needed to propel the satellites into the proper orbit, Roscosmos said in a statement.

The booster and the two satellites have “not been detected on the transition orbit,” the space agency said, but rather “from the interim emergency orbit,” indicating a failure.

A Roscosmos spokesman said that space experts worldwide would monitor the lost satellites and that at least for the moment, they posed no danger to the International Space Station. “We have many years of successful experience in ensuring the safety of the station,” the spokesman said.

A similar malfunction with the Briz-M booster last August resulted in the loss of another communications satellite, which floated in...

[riverdawg]

A former classmate of mine worked in the Office of Soviet Analysis at the CIA for many years during the Cold War. Back in the 80s I asked him if, given what he knew about the Soviet nuclear threat, he had trouble sleeping at night. He replied matter-of-factly that, no, he slept well in part because he didn't think that many of their ICBMs would make it off the launch pad and most of those which did would land harmlessly elsewhere.

[Condor51]

*** You capitalist people are just so unrealistic. ~~ snip ~~ Obamanomics ... saves us a fortune ***

Yep, you're right, we're just spoiled I guess -- all that 'Success stuff', feh, who needs it. But given enough time, like in a nice Camp in Siberia, we'll all 'get' Obamanomics. Heck, we'll have to, or he'll just kill us outright.

But until then, it appears all our 'savings' from Obamanomics is driving us all into bankruptcy. And this new feeling we're supposed to have that he's pushing of: 'Whoopee! .. We're Poor Now!', is a bit hard to grasp. (LOL)

BTW - I think I know why you never got that Global Warming *back home* you were looking for. You were at the same Latitude at Green Bay, Wisconsin :-)

[SunkenCiv]

“The mishap was another blow to Russia’s space program...”

There wouldn’t be a Russian space program any longer if it weren’t for the Demwits in Congress, who crapped all over Reagan’s Space Station Freedom idea.

Thanks neverdem and gleeaikin.